Bee Movie on HD DVD possible?

We had reported in another story that DreamWorks was planning to cancel the “Bee Movie” on HD DVD as part of Paramount/DreamWorks’ move toward Blu-ray format going forward. At the time we received this information we continued to question the validity of it due to the fact that the Bee Movie’s release date was so much closer than most of the other titles that Paramount/DreamWorks was going to cancel.

The planning and pressing of titles had to take place well in advance of the release date in order for the title to be ready on the date promised. The Bee Movie’s release date was so close we had to believe that the HD DVDs for the Bee Movie had to either already be in the process of being pressed or had already been pressed and are awaiting shipment.

As the release date of March 11th continues to draw closer, we expected many of the high profile retailers to start removing the Bee Movie on HD DVD from the offerings on their Web sites, but surprisingly the Bee Movie continues to remain available for pre-order. In our case we had pre-ordered our copy from Amazon, and while we received notices that our pre-order for other upcoming Paramount HD DVD titles was being canceled, our order for the Bee Movie still remained open.

While we have not seen official confirmation from DreamWorks that the Bee Movie on HD DVD is still going to ship on the promised release date of March 11th, as things stand at the moment it would appear (despite other claims to the contrary) that at least most retailers are still expecting the Bee Movie on HD DVD.

If it is released it is almost certain to be the last title that will come out of DreamWorks on HD DVD. Still, it should make an excellent addition to your HD DVD collection if you are looking to pick up those last couple of HD DVDs; however, expect to pay a premium price for it, as we don’t expect it to be heavily discounted and we expect that availability will be limited should demand for it on HD DVD be higher than initially expected.